downthiswayboys

                How long does it take for myths to be revealed as just that: myths? Stories we tell ourselves when we don’t know (or don’t want to admit) what the truth really is? Some myths are harder to kill than others.

                On September 8^th, 2021, one of the largest statues of Robert E. Lee was finally removed. The iconic statue had been erected on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, in 1890. It would be the first of many other Confederate Statues erected on the avenue, including a statue to famed Confederate Cavalier J.E.B. Stuart. Needless to say, the removal of the statue has created quite a stir as it normally does when Confederate monuments are discussed in the mainstream. But the conversation of whether the statue should have been removed is not one I want to have today. It is one I have talked about, I feel, ad nauseum, and I do not believe I can offer any newer insights today than I did however long ago I wrote about monument removals.

                No, what piqued my interest is the comments made by former President Donald Trump. I want to throw out a disclaimer: I do not intend to discuss his policies, or to discuss him as a person. That is not the intended direction I want to take. When the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed, President Trump made a formal statement denouncing the state of Virginia (and specifically Governor Northam) and praising the legacy of Robert E. Lee. Now, this is obviously not the first time President Trump has displayed his love for the former Confederate General and loser of the American Civil War. His statements of support go back to the Charlottesville Confrontation in 2017 over the removal of Lee’s statue there. But the statements Trump made on the 8^th are, well, interesting.

                There are statements which, in a way, are kind of true. “Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all.” There are indeed many generals, and there have been many generals, who have revered Robert E. Lee as a great strategist. Dwight D. Eisenhower had a picture of Robert E. Lee in his office. Winston Churchill had heaped praise on Robert E. Lee, saying “Lee was the noblest American who had ever lived and one of the greatest commanders known to the annals of war”. Lee has always been held in high regard, and in large part this is because of that phenomenon I’ve talked about called “The Myth of the Lost Cause”. The statement, however, is incorrect about Robert E. Lee being the “greatest strategist of them all”. While some generals believe he was, Robert E. Lee’s track record in the war would prove otherwise.

                Here’s a statement chock full of false: “Robert E. Lee chose the other side because of his love for Virginia, and except for Gettysburg, would have won the war”. Gettysburg is most widely known as the “High Watermark of the Confederacy”. In fact, if you visit the battlefield today there is a marker which is labeled as the High Watermark of the Confederacy (though there is debate about the accuracy of this. Some argue that the marker shows the furthest point through Union Lines that Virginia troops advanced to, but that North Carolinians farther along the wall by the Abraham Brian Farm advanced deeper behind Union lines. Others argue that the Mississippians of William Barksdale’s Mississippi Brigade made it even farther behind Union lines the day before, and both are upset over “Virginian Bias”. Sheesh. Like that’s a thing.)

                The thing about the American Civil War is that, like most modern wars, one battle doesn’t always determine the outcome of the entire war. Keep in mind, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1^st-3^rd, 1863; Robert E. Lee did not surrender the Army of Northern Virginia until April 9^th, 1865, and the last Confederate forces did not surrender until the summer of 1865. And Gettysburg wasn’t Lee’s only defeat, as the former President makes it seem. Prior to Gettysburg, Lee’s first combat command was in West Virginia in 1861. He was defeated in the Battle of Cheat Mountain, fought from September 12-15^th, 1861. Cheat Mountain is located in eastern West Virginia, in the counties of Randolph and Pocahontas. Ironically, he was defeated by General George B. McClellan. Lee would fight McClellan again throughout the late spring and early summer of 1862 during the Seven Day’s Battles, and just over a year after their initial confrontation at Cheat Mountain they would clash around Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the Battle of Antietam on September 19^th, 1862.

                Lee’s loss at Cheat Mountain would have the same characteristics of his other lost battles, with the biggest one being the lack of coordination and control over his subordinates. This is something that Lee would never be able to fully reconcile and would cost him the war.

Even after Gettysburg, what some people would consider victories for Lee really weren’t victories at all. At the Battle of Mine Run in November 1863 it was Meade’s hesitation to launch a Fredericksburg Part Deux that gave Lee a “victory”. The Overland Campaign of May-June 1864 would end up with Lee technically “winning” a series of battles (the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Yellow Tavern, North Anna River, Totopotomoy Creek, Trevilian Station, and Cold Harbor) but here is where Lee does not show his prowess as the “greatest strategist of them all”.

Robert E. Lee was not a “big picture” general. By this, I mean that he had a hard time looking past Virginia and at the greater view of the war. But if you scale that down to the Overland Campaign, I will hazard a guess as to say that Lee expected to beat the Army of the Potomac in a battle, and the Army of the Potomac would simply retreat to winter quarters or closer to the Potomac. And why wouldn’t he think that? That was what every single Union General he faced did after losing a battle. Heck, Meade did that just as recently as November 1863 during the Mine Run campaign. But Grant and Meade did not do that in May of 1864. In fact, they simply marched around Lee. Grant’s objective was to do battle with Lee and to wear the Army of Northern Virginia down. Did he want to seize the Wilderness? Was Spotsylvania Courthouse a strategic goal? How about controlling the North Anna or Cold Harbor? Winning those battles would be a bonus. But Grant wasn’t simply looking for military targets to seize. Not until he got to Petersburg, anyway. He wanted to wear the Army of Northern Virginia down, because he knew that was what needed to happen in order to win. Lee got the “victories” during the Overland Campaign, but those victories led to his overall defeat. In a way, it is very similar to what happened to Hannibal Barca’s army during the Second Punic War against the Romans.

Following Hannibal’s stunning (and still mystifying) victory at the battle of Cannae on August 2^nd, 216 BC, Hannibal’s Carthaginian Army was considered unstoppable. Ever since crossing the Alps, Hannibal owned the Romans at every battle, and Cannae was his Deus Ex Machina. One of Hannibal’s goals was to get Rome’s allies on the Italian peninsula to abandon her and to join Hannibal. He thought that if he could do that, not only would his army be larger, but he could surround Rome and embarrass Rome the way Rome embarrassed Carthage following the First Punic War. However, there was a fatal flaw in Hannibal’s plan. As he won, the Romans stopped coming out to engage him. Instead, the Romans would go to city-states in Italy that had switched sides to the Carthaginians, and they would besiege them. Hannibal would be forced to respond to their aid, and by the time he arrived the Romans would be gone and would besiege another city. Hannibal was forced to put out fires until his army was finally recalled to Carthage in 203 BC.

What was the point of that little sidebar? The point is that while winning the single battle was great, it negatively impacted the outcome of the war. In this case, each one of these victories cost Lee thousands of soldiers, soldiers that he could not replace.

Now let’s say that Lee did win at the Battle of Gettysburg. What the former President forgets, as do many other people, is that things were not going good for the Confederacy in July 1863. See, while Lee was invading the north, Grant was busy besieging the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. On July 4^th, 1863, the day after the end of the Battle of Gettysburg, General John Pemberton surrendered his Army of Mississippi to Ulysses S. Grant. Note that this was not only not the first Confederate army to surrender to Grant, and it would not be the last.

Vicksburg, Mississippi was the last Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. It was the only thing keeping the United States from splitting the Confederacy in half. If Lee won at Gettysburg, Vicksburg still would have fallen.

Also on July 3^rd, 1863, the Union Army of the Ohio commanded by William S. Rosecrans seized the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga was a vital rail hub for the Confederacy, sending much needed supplies and reinforcements from the western Confederacy to the eastern Confederacy. With Chattanooga and Vicksburg severed, a victory for Lee at Gettysburg would have been, at the time, shrunken in comparison. Yay, Lee won in Pennsylvania. But in the process the rest of the Confederacy is collapsing, and the Union Army is continuing to close in on him.

I have always felt that Gettysburg was more of a must win for the Union than it was for the Confederacy, because the Union needed to know that it could decisively defeat the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater. It seemed to be the only theater of the war where the Confederacy had somewhat competent commanders in charge compared to their counterparts in Georgia and Mississippi.

“If only we had Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, that disaster would have ended in a complete and total victory many years ago.” Okay, this is the last one. But can we begin with the fact the Robert E. Lee surrendered his army? Lee did not win the actual fighting of the American Civil War (though his legacy and memory has done just fine). Also take into account that Lee had a higher casualty rate than his opponents. On average, his army suffered 20% casualties during major campaigns. In comparison, Grant’s armies in four separate theaters suffered 15% casualties. This is due to Lee being overly aggressive and being aggressive when he did not need to be aggressive. During his time as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee had a habit of launching massive attacks when he did not need to launch them.  As a result, thousands of lives were lost when they did not have to be in the first place. Does anyone think a war in Afghanistan directed by Robert E. Lee would be any different? I don’t think so. And here is my biggest reason why: unlike Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee did not learn from his mistakes.

July 1^st, 1862: the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia. It is the seventh day of the Seven Day’s Battles. The Union Army under George B. McClellan is making their way to the James River. McClellan has psyched himself out over the past six plus days, and he is beginning his withdrawal back up the James River to Harrison’s Landing. On Malvern Hill he places Col. Henry J. Hunt, his Chief of Artillery, in charge of fortifying the hill. Hunt proceeds to place 171 artillery pieces on top of Malvern Hill, in a position where if the Confederates wanted to attack and take the hill, they would have to march straight into the Union guns. That should be enough of a deterrent, right? Not for Lee. Lee launched an assault on Malvern Hill. His attack was viciously and decisively repelled. Out of 30,000 Confederates engaged on Malvern Hill, the Confederates suffered 5,650 casualties. D.H. Hill, a division commander within the Army of Northern Virginia, estimated that half of the casualties suffered during that day were from artillery shells. A year and two days later, on July 3^rd, 1863, Lee would launch the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge under similar circumstances. He assaulted an enemy who outnumbered him, had a defended position along a ridgeline, and had to assault over open ground where every Union battery could train their sights on his advancing soldiers and tear them apart.

The point is, either because he was incapable or he did not want to, Lee did not learn from his mistakes. This is a criticism I have long held of the general, and it is something that his Union counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, did well. When Grant had a setback, he learned from that mistake and grew stronger. His performance at Shiloh is a great example. Robert E. Lee would continue to launch unnecessary assaults throughout the war, long after Gettysburg, and even when it was more prudent to stay on the defensive. Take a General like this now and place him in command of an army that is tasked with A.) Hunting down a specific Terrorist and B.) fighting a counterinsurgency. In my opinion (and I want to reiterate this is my opinion), I would rather have Ulysses S. Grant in charge of the war in Afghanistan and not Lee. Lee would not lead the US to victory; if anything, Lee would lead us into a deeper disaster.

Myths are created for a reason. They are established to help explain things that are unexplainable. However, the myths outgrow their usefulness when those unexplainable things are explained. I feel that we are at a point where we should be able to agree that the legacy of Robert E. Lee that we were not only taught, but that so many believe, is just a myth. We know the truth. We know the casualty reports. We know the shortcomings and failures militarily. We know that he was not that good of a general, as well as not being a super stellar American or human being. Maybe with the removal of this monument and the former President’s whimpering about Lee being a great American, we are finally seeing this myth begin to be dispelled.  

157 years ago, early this morning, hours before Pickett’s Charge, battle raged on the slopes of Culp’s Hill. Fighting on Culp’s Hill is often overlooked in the public image of the Battle of Gettysburg. In school, when talking about the Battle of Gettysburg it is associated with Pickett’s Charge. In the movie Gettysburg and the novel, The Killer Angels, it is overshadowed by the 20th Maine on Little Round Top. But on July 2nd and July 3rd, some of the most sustained and bloodiest fighting occurs on Culp’s Hill. There are many stories that come from Culp’s Hill spanning both the 2nd and 3rd days, with the 3rd possibly being the bloodier of the two. There is the story of Wesley Culp, a private in the 2nd Virginia and member of the Stonewall Brigade. Wesley was a resident of Gettysburg before the war; Culp’s Hill is named for his family, who still lived in Gettysburg. Wesley returned to fight on that very hill and died fighting on his family’s farm.

Culp’s Hill also saw a fight which literally pitted brother against brother. In George H. Steuart’s Brigade (CSA) was a unit known as the 1st Maryland Battalion. They found themselves assaulting the position of the 1st Maryland Eastern Shore Regiment. Maryland was a border state; it never seceded from the United States. However, there was a large population of Confederate sympathizers, and many of these went south and joined the Confederacy.

But one story in particular I want to shed light on occurred just after midnight on July 3rd. It is a story new to me and is the story of Maj. Joshua G. Palmer of the 66th Ohio. Maj. Palmer was born in 1829 in Parma, New York, just west of Rochester, New York. He moved to Urbana, Ohio, to pursue a career as a dentist. At the outbreak of war, he joined the 66th Ohio Infantry and formed its Company B. He would see action on the Shenandoah Valley fighting the Stonewall Brigade, as well as fighting from 2nd Manassas to Chancellorsville.

Maj. Palmer spent yesterday marching up and down the Baltimore Pike, not seeing much action. The 66th Ohio was part of Charles Candy’s Brigade, in John W. Geary’s division of the 12th Corps. By nightfall they were moving back up Culp’s Hill. Just after midnight, Candy’s Brigade launched a counterattack at the Confederates who were on the steep, wooded slope of Culp’s Hill. Maj. Palmer led the way, and during the fighting he was shot through the left lung. As he was being removed from the field, he told his men “Stay with them boys, I will soon be back with you”. Maj. Palmer would die of his wounds at the 12th Corps Field Hospital (which was the Bushman Farm) on July 10th. His body would be sent back to Parma, New York, where he now rests beside his parents.

I was excited for this day. I had been waiting since the last day of 7th Grade to come back to Social Studies, because at the start of my 8th grade year we were going to kick it all off with the Civil War. As I’ve mentioned before, I have been fascinated by the Civil War since an early age. Today we were specifically going to talk about Abraham Lincoln. All I had to do was get through English, Art, and then Lunch period.
I was in English when the rumors started going around. It started off that a bomb had gone off in a local school. I became worried; see, my mom had started a new carrier field, and was working at a local nursery school. The school was located inside a synagogue. I immediately became concerned: I watched a LOT of History Channel, back when it had mostly history content and not Pawn Shops or Aliens. My mind went to the Oklahoma City Bombing, and how it was carried out by a White Supremacist. Could this be what happened? Was her school bombed?
My English teacher refused to turn the TV on and refused to even talk about what was happening. For a 13-year-old kid who read too much, this was agonizing. I never forgave her for that for a while, but the older I get and the more I think about it, I cannot remain upset with her. She was a new teacher, and the principal had instructed all teachers not to turn the TV’s on or tell any of the students what happened in hopes of not causing a panic.
I found out what happened in Art Class. I also saw the South tower come down in that very class. My art teacher, who ranks amongst the coolest teachers I ever had (even though he was the first to give me detention) was teary eyed when we walked in. The towers were burning, thick black gray smoke billowing up into the bright blue sky. All those people…all those people. What was going to happen to all those people?
The TV had switched over to more breaking news. Thick black smoke was rising from a gaping hole in the Pentagon. Breaking News: Reports of Fire at the Pentagon scrolled across the bottom of the screen. My heart dropped into my stomach. We called him “Uncle Bob”. He had been friends with my dad since high school, had joined the Air Force with him. We had visited him in Virginia a couple of years earlier, and we got a tour of the Pentagon because that’s where he worked. He still called my dad, usually after Redskins games to debrief. Was he there? What was happening?
As it gets farther from the event, the minor events of that day disappear. They are overtaken by the larger events of the day. I remember watching the South tower collapse, disappearing into a cloud of gray-brown smoke and debris. My Art Teacher turned and looked at us, eyes red, all of us sitting at large wooden tables behind kilns.
“They told me not to turn the TV on,” he had said. “But you all need to see this. This is history.”
I never saw the second tower collapse. Our cafeteria was on the ground floor of the Middle School. The chatter was intense, because no one understood what was happening or what it all meant. Flying overhead were three attack helicopters, flying east toward New York City.
After lunch was Social Studies. The class I had been so excited for, so ready to jump into the Civil War, now had a different vibe. It felt hollow. But my Social Studies teacher knew what to say. He had taught me in 7th Grade and moved up to 8th Grade with us. I remember him sitting on a table, looking out at all of us. He had started off the class talking about how in the 1970’s airplane hijackings were common. However, the hijackers would demand a ransom and had never flown suicide missions. He looked at all of us, a pained look.
“Someday,” he said, “your kids are going to read about this day in a history book and learn about it in Social Studies class just like this.” In that moment, it was so hard to believe. But now, 18 years later, there are young people enlisting in the military who will be sent to Afghanistan who were not even born, who never saw what happened that day.
I remember going home and seeing my mom watching everything on TV. She had been trying to get ahold of my father, who was supposed to be flying home from Texas that morning. Because of the attacks, all airspace in the United States was shut down. He was forced to drive home from Texas, cross country to New York. My dad was in the Air Force Reserves at the time and had been in Texas for training. What I didn’t realize that day, what I didn’t think of until the following days, was the long-term effects of what happened. My dad’s C-Bag packed and sitting by the front door would be as normalized as the couch in the living room or the sink in the kitchen. It was a reminder of how life could change with a phone call.
One of the things that sticks with me from that day was the moments following the collapse of the towers. You could hear them on TV, replayed over and over. In the gray fog of debris which covered lower Manhattan, you could hear hundreds of hi-lo alarms, muffled. I remember watching this on TV and not knowing what those sounds were. At first, I thought they were car alarms. After I started volunteering with the local fire department did, I realize what those alarms were.
Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) Devices are devices Firefighters wear on their person. Today they are built into the SCBA (Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus) packs we wear when fighting fires. If a Firefighter remains motionless for thirty seconds, the alarm would begin to sound. It would be slow at first, but then increase in intensity until it is a full-blown alarm. This alarm alerts other firefighters to where a firefighter who has fallen, become trapped, or unresponsive is located. The rescuing firefighters would follow the sounds of the alarm to find where they were located. The hundreds of alarms that I heard on TV, that you can still watch today on YouTube or any special on 9/11, were alarms going off alerting everyone that there were fallen and trapped firefighters in the rubble. To think about it today, how those sounds signaled firefighters who were either in distress or deceased, still gives me chills.
The pouring of first responders to the scene of the World Trade center before the collapse of the towers recalls the story of the 1st Minnesota Regiment on the 2nd Day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The 1st Minnesota consisted of 262 men, who on the 2nd were standing on Cemetery Ridge. They were all that stood between a dangerous gap in the Union defenses and the Confederate Brigade of Brigadier General Cadmus Wilcox. Ordered by General Winfield Scott Hancock to attack the much larger Confederate force, Col. William Colvill and the men of the 1st Minnesota had to have known that they were being ordered to their deaths. But they did not hesitate. 262 men stepped off from Cemetery Ridge; only 47 returned from the maelstrom. Watching the Paramedics, Firefighters, and Police Officers streaming up the streets toward the Twin Towers, I can’t help but see the same courage and determination in them as when reading about the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg.
This was not a normal Civil War post, but that’s okay. What happened today was history; what happened today 18 years ago was just as influential as what happened 155 years ago today. And just like the Civil War, it is our duty to always remember and never forget.

It is Black History Month. And with Black History month comes all the Civil War pages posting articles about, well, anything related to African-American History during the Civil War. And as such, the comments that come in are, well, what one would expect.
It starts with the articles talking about African-Americans who fought for the Union during the Civil War. This is a fascinating portion of Civil War history by the way, if you are new to all of this and are interested in reading more about the American Civil War or learning more. The attitudes toward both former slaves, runaway slaves, and men born free would surprise most people today. There was a serious concern as to whether African-Americans could stand up and fight in battle. The leading thought at the time was that slaves and former slaves were too meek and timid to fight, and that they would run away at the first shots. The men of the United States Colored Troops (USCT) had set out to dispel that myth. Over 180,000 African-Americans would join the United States Military. Twenty-five African-Americans would earn the Medal of Honor during the war, fourteen of those medals coming from a single battle in Virginia alone. The USCT fought ferociously and suffered high casualty rates. By the end of the war, they would prove that African-Americans could fight both on land and at sea.
Unfortunately, following these pages which aim to shed more light on the heroic actions of these men, there are those who will ask “Why don’t you say anything about African-Americans who fought for the Confederacy? They should be remembered too!” These posts are usually accompanied by a picture of a headstone in the south marking the grave of an unknown African-American who fought for the Confederacy, or my favorite, the African-American reenactor who is dressed in a Confederate Uniform. I hate to ruin the fairytale, but this didn’t happen.
Before anyone jumps on me, let me be clear: from what I’ve read and been able to find, there are no concrete reports of massive amounts of African-Americans volunteering and fighting for the Confederacy. Now, there are anecdotes about Confederate African-Americans. Some of the most famous ones include Nathan Bedford Forrest (former slave trader and future founder of the Ku Klux Klan) riding with forty-four to forty-five of his own slaves with the promise of giving them their freedom after the war and extolling them for their fighting ability during the war itself. There are stories of individual slaves who, when presented with the chance to fight, picked up muskets and fought. But those stories usually start out with “they followed their masters to war and then…”. You can fill in the rest. Their master was killed, or they were about to be overrun.
What I’m not going to discredit is that any African-American fought willingly for the Confederate cause. To do so would be an absolute fallacy on my part. With the number of people involved in this conflict, on such a scale, it would be impossible to say this with any certainty. But what I can say is that there was not any number large enough in force to affect the outcome of the war, and that the thought of armed African-Americans was, as a whole, discouraged greatly. Those that did pick up arms and fight did so, well, illegally.
Exhibit A is the 1st Louisiana Native Guards. This was a regiment of free-men in Louisiana who joined the Confederate cause and wanted to fight for them. Those who believe in the myth of the Black Confederate immediately jump up and point to them and say “See! See! Told ya!”. Well, settle down. This regiment, which was formed in 1861 at the outbreak of the war, was disbanded in a short amount of time (I believe in less than a month). Why? Because Louisiana had passed a law making it illegal for any African-American to own or carry a gun. Talk about infringement on the 2nd Amendment right, amiright? Anyway, this regiment disbanded, and many saw this as a sign that they were not actually welcome in this new Confederate States of America. So, they reformed the 1st Louisiana Guards when the Union Army got closer and fought against the Confederacy.
Exhibit B is Patrick Cleburne. If anyone knows me, they know that I have a soft spot for General Cleburne. Irish born, he left the service of the British Army to find a new life in Arkansas. At the outbreak of the Civil War, his allegiance followed his adopted state, and he joined the army and went up through the ranks. Cleburne, from what I was able to pick out from his biography, was not a slave holder and actually didn’t think much of the institution. In 1864, Cleburne would become really, really famous, and not just as the “Stonewall of the West”. Cleburne commanded a division in the Army of Tennessee. He had seen fighting at all of the major battles between the Mississippi River and the Blue Ridge Mountains; Shiloh, Corinth, Stones River, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, Lookout Mountain. He knew the Confederacy was hurting for soldiers. There are people on the internet who insist that the Confederate Army was the “most diverse army in history”, but they are really incorrect. The main language of the Confederate Army was English. The primary language for the Union Army? Well, it was a mix. It was a mix because more immigrants found their way to the North than they did to the South, and this is true even before the outbreak of the war. An Italian or German or Polish immigrant had a better chance of finding work in New York or Boston than in Charleston or Savannah. Why? Because simple laborer jobs that would be available in the North were occupied by slaves in the South. Why move somewhere where you will starve penniless when you can move somewhere and starve while getting paid? Plus, in the North there was a better chance of climbing the social ladder and becoming a success than in the South, where old plantation money still ruled. But I digress.
The point of that tangent was that the Confederate Army was not as diverse as modern supporters would like everyone else to believe. And Cleburne noticed this. The North had an influx of new men looking to fight for their adopted homeland; the Confederates did not. So, Cleburne devised a plan. His proposal was to arm at least a division of slaves and promise them their freedom in return for service. A division could have 12,000 to 17,000 soldiers in it (Confederate divisions tended to be heavier). So, let’s say 17,000 fresh soldiers to bolster the Confederate cause, and you can send them anywhere. Can you imagine what damage that could do? Imagine Joseph E. Johnston with 17,000 more soldiers at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, or those 17,000 men at the Battle of Atlanta? Or an extra division under Lee’s Command at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse? This would have been big. And with a promise like that, there was even the possibility of a corps. The African-American population in the South was larger than the population in the North.
Cleburne passed this idea up the chain of command. This is a brilliant idea, right? Well, his superiors didn’t think so. In fact, the proposal was squashed quietly in Richmond. One superior even called it an “abolitionist conspiracy”. See, similar ideas had been brought up before in the Confederate Congress. They never got far; states such as Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana had threatened to secede from the Confederacy if African-Americans ever armed and allowed to join the army. See what I mean about it being illegal? The people who wanted to secede didn’t want their former and current slaves taking up arms and fighting for them. And again, there were probably good reasons for that as well. Slave owners across the South still woke up in the dead of night, cold sweat rolling down their foreheads as they had nightmares of Haiti. Slaves in Haiti had revolted in the early 1800’s, not only overthrowing their white masters but killing every white man, woman, and child. And there was also flashbacks to Nat Turner’s Rebellion, but we’ll get to that.
As a result of his proposal, Patrick Cleburne would be passed over for promotion multiple times. The Confederate hierarchy did not want someone who would propose a solution “like that” commanding a body of soldiers larger than a division, which he commanded and would command until his untimely, unnecessary death at the Battle of Franklin in November 1864.
Exhibit C is all the stories that get floated around on the internet. All the stories that are proposed as fact on comment threads are either vague or talk about a single slave who picked up arms to fight for the Confederacy in their moment of need. However, these small events don’t add up to anything significant. Some historians believe that less than 1% of the Confederate Army was made up of Black Soldiers, and the bulk of whom were destined to serve in menial jobs such as digging trenches, working as cooks or as teamsters. Rough estimates are 100,000 African-Americans who served in those roles, but it is hard to tell because records were not kept of them. Honestly, it was because the Confederacy did not care enough about them. Those who did fight may have been impressed into fighting by their masters. For stories of slaves fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with their masters, there are stories of slaves who were forced to help work artillery pieces but were then grateful to be captured by Union soldiers. Lost Causers have even gone so far as to invent Black Confederates to build monuments to.
If there were Black Confederates, why would they have fought for the Confederacy? The Confederates wanted them as property only, not as human beings. One article I read actually brought up a good point: maybe they fought for self-preservation. It is hard to consider now but think on it: The Civil War was a time of great uncertainty. With a rapidly changing political climate, a White American would not know what tomorrow was going to bring. But now consider that you are a free African-American in the South, or a slave. If you do not show support for the Confederacy, or you try to oppose them, what would happen to you if the Confederacy won? What would have happened to the millions of slaves in the South if the Confederacy had managed to pull out a victory? Surely, it would not have ended well. If anything could give us a clue, I would say Nat Turner’s Rebellion.
In August 1831, Virginian slave Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The slaves killed close to 60 white southerners before being stopped by the local militia. In response, fifty-six slaves were executed, with Nat Turner himself being drawn and quartered. Another 120 slaves and free African-Americans were killed in extrajudicial killings stretching as far south as North Carolina. Any slave with even a suspicion of being associated with Nat Turner was executed. Harsher laws were passed throughout the South, making it illegal to teach slaves to read and forbidding them from having their own church services. The activities and movements of slaves were greatly restricted.
I can only imagine a similar situation occurring in the Confederacy following a victory in the Civil War, only on a larger scale. If that was the case, would you not want to hedge your bets for your survival? That reasoning alone explains away many anecdotes proffered by Lost Causers and Neo-Confederates on the internet.
The bottom line folks is that Black Confederates didn’t exist in the numbers that Lost Causers want everyone to believe. The story of the Black Confederate is used more to hide the fact that the Confederacy fought to preserve and protect the institute of slavery, and to make the Confederates seem not so racist. I get it; no one wants to admit the ugly truth. But, come on. At some point it needs to be accepted. Once accepted, we can move on and have a better understanding of the conflict itself.

Today is one of the saltiest days of the year. And you may ask yourself: why is that? Well, today is the 210th Birthday of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. It was also his election which sparked the secession of the eleven states of the Confederacy beginning in December 1860. But to look at the comments on various posts marking the President’s Birthday, the pain and outrage are still very real. It is not out of the ordinary to see the labels “Dictator”, “Bastard” and “Tyrant” tossed about, even though Lincoln never exhibited any of these characteristics or from what we’ve seen of his personal papers or speeches, harbored any thoughts.
Furthermore, the commenters themselves make me even more curious. To hear these people talk about Lincoln, they speak almost as if they are victims of his outrage. I mean, they speak like their families, their “people”, were victims of a genocidal maniac. Yet these people commenting are not part of the Sioux Nation; most of these folk’s hail from Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee. Even more bizarre is that some are from states that didn’t secede (ex. Ohio) or weren’t states yet (ex. Idaho). Yet their anger, their venom, their salt has so much bite in it. But why?
The only thing I can think of is that these folks are caught hook, line, and sinker in the myth of the Lost Cause. For new readers (those will be the ones not rolling their eyes) the Myth of the Lost Cause is the fairytale told by ex-Confederates to justify why they seceded, what they fought for, and ultimately why they lost. Consider 19th century excuse making. Unfortunately, these excuses have made their way into history books and passed down as the gospel amongst families and communities. Among the Lost Myth canon is the fact that Lincoln was a despot and a bad guy, and the blame for the loss of 620,000+ lives is usually laid at his feet. Which is true: everyone remembers how on April 12th, 1861, as Lincoln fires the first shots of the war on an isolated Confederate outpost, taking an already tense situation and igniting a hot war. Wait, that wasn’t him? Oh, that’s right, it was Confederate President Jefferson Davis who ordered Maj. Gen. PGT Beauregard to fire on Ft. Sumter, an isolated Federal outpost in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Yes, a Federal outpost, since South Carolina has given the island to the US government in the 1840’s. Yet, somehow the North is still the aggressive party, even after they were the ones attacked first? If anyone is to blame for the deaths of over 620,000+, I would think they would lie with those in the Confederate government who had given the order to commence firing.
Lincoln has also been labeled a Genocidal maniac by these folks (who, when reading their comments, are obviously Lost Causers). They immediately point to the Dakota War of 1862. Honestly, there is nothing excusable about that. In fact, if anything it shows the deep flaw in US Policy towards Native Americans. For those that are unfamiliar, don’t be embarrassed; in all honesty, this uprising gets lost in the tumult of the American Civil War. During the Dakota War, which lasts from August 17 to December 26, 1862, the battles of Second Manassas, Antietam, and Fredericksburg are all fought in the Eastern Theater of the Civil War.
In brief (though this conflict deserves more than just an “in brief”), the war was a boiling point for Dakota tribesmen in Minnesota who had been incurring the usual US Native American Policy; treaty violations, lost land, lost food, dwindling payments and increased starvation. In August 1862 the Dakota had come to a point where enough was enough; they needed to do something to protect their people. So they began raiding settlements up and down the Minnesota River, killing settlers of all ages and genders. As it usually goes, the settlers who have the least to do with policy are usually the ones who are slaughtered. The same go for the Native tribesmen who are similarly massacred by the US Military. By the end of the rebellion, 303 Dakota men would be sentenced to death by a Military tribunal. Most Lost Causers, at this point, stand up and point their fingers at President Lincoln and go “See? See? Genocidal maniac! Tyrant! Bastard!”. Then they ramble on about how the Confederacy was the “most diverse army in the world” (spoiler alert: this is false. It is so false that it hurts to think about), and all the while ignoring the chattel slavery that the Confederates were fighting to protect.
President Lincoln, however, commuted the sentence of 264 of the Dakota. On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota warriors were hung in the largest mass execution in US History in Mankato, Minnesota. While yeah, feel good story that Lincoln pardoned a ton of warriors, we still had the largest mass execution in US History. I don’t think this makes Lincoln a dictator; however, I do believe that it is something that we need to look at as a country. One of our greatest presidents still allowed an event like this to happen. I mean, I’m sure we can find other reasons for this mass execution. The first one that pops into my head is the fact that we were already fighting a war, and this rebellion took place in Minnesota, far away from the frontlines of the Civil War, and in turn redirected resources for the war effort north. To put this rebellion down violently was to make sure it wouldn’t happen again for a while, much like stamping out fires in a wildfire. But even with that excuse, does it really make it any better? But again, does this make Lincoln a tyrant, considering that his predecessors were much stricter on Native Americans (do I need to go any further than President Jackson and the Trail of Tears?) or does that make his Presidency kind of “par for the course” when it comes to atrocities against Native Americans? It’s a “Oh look, another Administration exploiting and massacring Native Americans”. Just to complete this tangent, the fact that we can look at any US President until, well, today, and see atrocities against the Native Americans is a problem that needs to be addressed. But that’s a soapbox for another day.
These calls of Lincoln being a tyrant and a dictator usually use the example of Lincoln arresting Pro-Secessionist politicians in Maryland, as well as coming down on Copperhead journalists and those who were anti-war. Now, I have brought this up in past writings, specifically about the Emancipation Proclamation, but Washington, D.C. is located in a precarious position in 1860-1861. The capital city is surrounded by Maryland to the north and Virginia across the Potomac River to the South. When Virginia secedes in 1861, it puts a hostile neighbor on the southern border of Washington, D.C. Maryland in 1860 and 1861 is technically a slave state, and during the secession crisis there were voices calling for the separation of the state from the Union to join the Confederacy. In fact, the first blood spilled after the firing on Fort Sumter occurs in Baltimore, Maryland, when Pro-Confederate rioters lob bricks and other debris at Union soldiers arriving into the city and making their way to Washington.
Now, if Maryland seceded from the Union, Washington would be completely surrounded by hostile territory. The government would be forced to flee north, to possibly Philadelphia or New York City, because in 1861 Washington’s forts were not yet constructed. By 1863, Washington D.C would be the most fortified city in the world, and no Confederate army could take it.
The other thing about Maryland is that not every Marylander supported slavery. Slavery was more of an eastern-state deal. In Western Maryland, slavery was not considered popular. This is why Lee’s Maryland Campaign of 1862 and his follow-up sequel, the Gettysburg Campaign of 1863 did not result in legions of Marylanders flocking to the Stars and Bars. But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. Lincoln was faced with a crisis the likes of which had never been seen before in US History. The closest this would come to is Jackson and the Nullification Crisis, or even the Whigs in the Northeast during the War of 1812. But both of those instances were just threats; they did not bloom into open revolt.
While Lincoln was President, he arrested many people. He did so using Article 1, Section 9 of the US Constitution: “The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Using this justification, Pro-Confederates in Maryland were arrested, including the mayor of Baltimore George Brown, and the Governor of Maryland Thomas Hicks. These arrests came after the Maryland Legislature voted against secession, but the Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland refused to reopen vital rail lines in the North. Huh. So what you’re telling me is that these two politicians, who openly supported a rebellion that was threatening to tear apart the country, were arrested after refusing to allow Union soldiers to march through their state (which had not yet seceded) to help protect them and put down the rebellion? One of the big-ticket deals today is that if you’re a criminal, you should be put in jail. And yeah, it’s not just today, but it has been a thing for a while. So why should there be any difference in this case?
Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeus corpus and his interpretation of Article 1, Section 9 was brought up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court shot down Lincoln, saying that his arrests were unconstitutional. Lincoln retaliated, giving his reasoning to Congress:
“The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen’s liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the Government should be overthrown when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it” is equivalent to a provision—is a provision—that such privilege may be suspended when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the Executive, is vested with this power; but the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it can not be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion.”
Anyway, it doesn’t matter. By 1862 any political prisoners Lincoln had arrested, he had released. So, no indefinite imprisonments, as other dictators or tyrants would do. Again, another fake attempt at taking the high road for Lost Causers.
What I try to think of, though, and what I encourage everyone at home to do is to put yourselves in the shoes of the 16th President. Either imagine you are him or imagine that you’re the newly elected President of the United States. You’re hated by the Southerners because they consider you a “Black Republican” (a Republican who was an abolitionist or wanted to end the institute of slavery) and as a result, they launch an aggressive (yes, aggressive) uprising. They are attempting to tear apart that which you have sworn an oath to protect. People who were once your neighbors are now you’re enemies. And furthermore, you are moving to a city that is about to have those same angry neighbors who burn effigies of you in the streets living just across the river from you. You are threatened with isolation, and what’s more a fear that other people share the same sentiment as those angry neighbors to the South are living all around you: in the North, even in the same city as you. What do you do? Espionage is a real thing at this time. Saboteurs would blow up rail bridges in Maryland, and threats of assassination are everywhere. Seriously. Do you let suspected enemies of the state move around freely or do you attempt to keep tabs on them?
Using a more modern example, look at 9/11. Look at the security apparatus that was implemented following the 9/11 attacks. Is this not the right course? To remain vigilant? Or is that too much? My question for those who believe that Lincoln was a tyrant is this: what is the difference between a possible Al-Qaeda terrorist in 2001-2002 and a Copperhead or Confederate in 1861? In my opinion, there is no difference. Both are enemies of the state, both need to be observed, and both need to be stopped before they can trigger larger calamities. Lincoln’s Arrest record during the Civil War is no different than the Post-9/11 world and the War on Terror. Does that make George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump dictators and tyrants? (That is a rhetorical question folks). Now, if you don’t surveille those people or arrest them for interrogation or being threats, what do you do? Do you allow them to walk free? If you do so and an attack occurs, and innocent American civilians die, how do you justify that to the public, yourself, and to history?
At the end of the day, the motivation for Anti-Lincoln fever is muddled and unclear. It could be something as simple as misinformation; it could even be something as complex as not liking his policies or, usually, the fact that he did things such as even write the Emancipation Proclamation and propose the 13th Amendment, both of which was pretty remarkable and ballsy for the time period. Still, I think many are upset because he didn’t just let the Confederacy part ways and silently slip into the sea of history. There was some on his birthday, but there’ll be more on April 15th who celebrate his assassination and praise John Wilkes Booth for what he did that night. I think there is enough to not only make him a great President (I mean, don’t even get me started on how he picked his cabinet), but also a great all-around American. His leadership got us through the darkest time in American history; his personal and public writings even show his abhorrence for the war and his hopes for it’s end without too much blood lost. His plans for reconstruction, his change with standard doctrine which was not to hang every rebel from a tree, but to accept them back into the fold as brother, is almost Christlike. That mercy, which today is often touted but rarely practiced, should be an example set forth for all Americans to follow and to strive toward. So, while everyone is being salty that they don’t have their slaves anymore because of Mr. Lincoln, I’ll just wish him a Happy Birthday.

I woke up this morning to the news that Morgan Sheppard had passed away. Morgan Sheppard was best known for his roles on Star Trek and Dr. Who, but that was not where I first saw him. To be perfectly honest, I had never seen him on either show before. I first saw Morgan Sheppard when I was 5 years old, watching the movie Gettysburg.
By the time I was 5, I was an anomaly; I had memorized all the U.S. Presidents in chronological order (including the always tricky Grover Cleveland at #22 and #24). It was at this age that the movie Gettysburg had come out. Most 5-year old’s heroes were the Power Rangers; while I liked the Power Rangers as well, my heroes were in this movie.
October 2018 marked the 25th Anniversary of the release of the movie Gettysburg. I was lucky enough to be able to attend this event. For me I finally got to meet some of my childhood heroes, like Patrick Gorman (John Bell Hood) and Stephen Lang (George Pickett); Brian Mallon (Winfield Scott Hancock) and Patrick Fulci (A.P.Hill). Also in attendance was Andrew Prine (Richard Garnett), Bo Brinkman (Walter Taylor), and James Patrick Stuart (E. Porter Alexander). These were the guys that I grew up watching. It was one of the first movies I remember owning on VHS, and it was such a long movie that there were two VHS tapes instead of one!
Morgan Sheppard played Brig. Gen. Isaac Trimble in the movie. Morgan Sheppard is just one of many actors who I did not know was in it (for example, did you know Donal Logue was in Gettysburg? The Dad from “Grounded for Life” was Capt. Ellis Spear of the 20th Maine. I was this many days old!) But his performance was one of those performances that is burned into my memory. His impassioned plea to Gen. Robert E. Lee (Martin Sheen) for another assignment after relaying the hesitation made by Richard Ewell in assaulting Culp’s Hill. You could see the frustration on Sheppard’s face as he relayed his willingness to lead up any body of men, even as small as a regiment, up an unknown, rocky hill. It’s one of those scenes where I can hear the beginning of it and recite it by heart. But that is how the whole movie is.
Gettysburg is based on the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, published in 1974. If you’ve ever read The Killer Angels but you haven’t watched the movie…watch the movie. If you’ve never read the book but have seen the movie…see the movie. In a nutshell, the movie covers the three-day Battle of Gettysburg from the view points of General Longstreet, General Lee, General Buford, and Col. Chamberlain. But the way both the movie and the book approach the battle is something that has always captivated me. The movie was not overly political, which is a feat in and of its own. It is very, very difficult to approach anything from the American Civil War and avoid some of the political aspects of the war, chiefly the issue of slavery. Slavery is brought up here and there but does not take center stage. While it doesn’t take center stage in the movie, it is still addressed, mostly from the view point of Col. Chamberlain of Maine and a brief comment made by Gen. James Longstreet (Tom Berenger).
The movie concentrates more on the mindset of each character involved. Lee is the character who believes he is invincible and can see his enemy on the ropes; one more good blow and the war would be over. Longstreet was the reluctant subordinate, trying to bring some sense of reality to his commander but nevertheless willing to comply with his ultimate decision. Buford was the veteran cavalryman tasked with the impossible: hold back a larger force with his smaller one, sacrificing his command for the greater good. And Chamberlain was the young, green commander who found himself in a near-impossible position where the fate of an entire army rested on his untested shoulders. However, while these were the four main viewpoints, there were other side plot as well. There was the relationship between Winfield Scott Hancock (Brian Mallon) and Lo Armistead (Richard Jordan); two friends who were, at Gettysburg, pitted against each other. Another subplot was the story of Richard Garnett (Andrew Prine), who has had the charge of cowardice on his shoulders leveled by the late Stonewall Jackson. Going into Gettysburg, he wants to prove the now deceased Confederate Legend wrong.
Not going to lie, the first thing that intrigued me about this movie was the fight scenes. From Buford’s initial stand to Chamberlain fixing bayonets on Little Round Top; from one of the largest bombardments on North American soil to Pickett’s Charge. I’m not going to sit here and lie saying that at 5 I had deeper understanding of the movie. But, having watched the movie repeatedly, I’ve found something moving about these struggles big and small. I mean, there’s something almost Shakespearean about the relationship of Hancock and Armistead and watching as Armistead led his men from the front toward the defenses of Hancock, whose men were safe behind the stone walls. The story of Richard Garnett strikes me as a Tragedy, the ultimate chance to redeem himself on the field of battle.
Gettysburg is a big deal in Gettysburg, obviously. What I didn’t realize until recently was how big a role Gettysburg played in Civil War conservation. The movie was filmed on location at both the Gettysburg National Military Park and on private property in Adams County, Pennsylvania. While the movie wasn’t breaking box office records, it did highlight the role of reenactors in America. One of my favorite little movie tidbits is the fact that this was an epic; the extras were reenactors from all over America, who converged on this sleepy town again to make the movie.
The movie also highlighted the need to preserve battlefields across America. Through this movie came the birth of the Civil War Trust, which in 2018 became the American Battlefield Trust. The Trust, through donations, purchased private property for sale that was the location of battles. The Civil War Trust did major work in battlefield reclamation in Gettysburg. Go to Gettysburg today, and you will see how it looked in July 1863 (except for the monuments).
Gettysburg has played a big role in my life and in me growing up. I couldn’t help but think about this as I sat in the seats at the Majestic Theater in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This movie was what ignited my passion for the American Civil War, and still fuels it to this day. I watched this movie when I was sick, when I couldn’t sleep, and every time in between. Meeting the actors in person was meeting my heroes in person.

Trimble pleads with Lee- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNWWCwED9D0

Trimble in Pickett’s Charge- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuwCHrb2R6M

Anyone who has engaged in at least one internet debate involving the Civil War has probably been blasted with some variation of this response: “Why don’t you read a book?” This is, of course, meant to imply that you obviously have no clue what you’re talking about, and sometimes may even include a variation of the phrase “ignorant Yankee” (at least that’s what has been hurled at me). Anyone who has been studying or even casually reading about the Civil War knows that there are thousands of books on the topic, and that it would be near impossible to read every book written about the war.
When someone asks me this question, or uses it to insult me personally, the first question that comes to my mind is: what books are you reading? There is an author, for example, who writes about the “tyranny of Abraham Lincoln”. This man, a Dentist by trade, spews nothing but nonsense. But his name has been passed around in arguments as an expert on how Lincoln “victimized the South”. But it’s books like these, written more with an agenda in mind than with any kind of facts. The books that this author wrote are mostly a collection of jabs at established historians.
Now, don’t get me wrong: historians are not infallible. New information comes to light constantly. The first example I can think of is the number of soldiers who are believed to have taken part in Pickett’s Charge. For decades the lore was that the Confederates assaulted Cemetery Ridge with 15,000 soldiers. However, I want to say for at least the last ten years the narrative has changed. The number of soldiers has dropped to 13,000, and it is even debated as to if even that many made it to the Emmitsburg Road, with reports of whole units of soldiers turning around and retreating to the woods. The point here, though, is that as documents are uncovered and historical sites excavated and surveyed, things change. But the historians are on the front lines of these changes, both those in the fields and those in academics. I’ll trust what I read from a professor of Civil War history from the University of North Carolina over the ramblings of a mediocre Dentist.
With the amount of times this has been said to me or that I read this on a comment thread, it has made me wonder: if I were someone interested in the Civil War, and I had never picked up a book before, where do I start? What books do I read? What books do I avoid? Well, that’s why I’m here, and why I have this segment. I cannot filter every single book…like I said, there are thousands upon thousands of Civil War books. But what I can do, is review books that I have read. And I’m going to open it up to both Fiction and Non-Fiction books, because why not? So, to kick off my Why Not Read A Book? Book reviews…
How about The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why The North Won by Edward H. Bonekemper III (2015). So with a name like Bonekemper, how can it not be good? To start, Edward H. Bonekemper III was a big name in the American Civil War world. It’s important, when looking for good non-fiction books to read, to look at who wrote the book. As I stressed before, especially nowadays, anyone can publish a book. Mr. Bonekemper, born in 1942, was actually a Federal Attorney by trade. However, he had a bachelor’s degree in American History from Muhlenberg College, and eventually earned a master’s degree in American History from Old Dominion University. Not only was he an attorney, but he was also a retired Coast Guard Reserve Commander. Starting in 2003 he began to teach Military History at Muhlenberg College, but he had been writing non-fiction Civil War books since 1998. Over his career he had given lectures at the Smithsonian Institute and spoke at many Civil War Round Table Forums.
Mr. Bonekemper’s niche within the Civil War community was two-fold: the first was the Generalship of both sides, specifically comparing and contrasting Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. His other was slavery. When you pick up this book, especially if you are new to the Civil War, you may furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “The Myth of the Lost Cause? What is that?” If you haven’t yet, I’ve touched on the Lost Cause several times in my blog and will probably touch on it some more before I am done writing for good. It is something that still plagues us today. It rears its ugly head when someone claims that the war was fought over “State’s Rights”, usually while saying “Heritage not hate” in the same exact sentence. The fact that this is a conversation we’re still having in this country makes this book a necessity.
What this book does is break down the Myth of the Lost Cause, myth by myth. The Myth of the Lost Cause, today, is seen as the following:
– The South fought for State’s Rights, and the War wasn’t about Slavery
– Slavery was a dying institution
– Robert E. Lee was a Military Genius
– The South couldn’t have ever won the war because they were outnumbered and outgunned
– Ulysses S. Grant was a butcher and a drunk and was not as great a general as Robert E. Lee
– The North won the war by waging Total War
Mr. Bonekemper points out before even going through each myth and debunking it that the winner doesn’t always write history, which would be the first myth of the Lost Cause. And he has a point; look at the novel and movie Gone with the Wind (1936 and 1939 respectively), or Birth of a Nation (1915). Confederates are portrayed romantically, especially antebellum life. Look at the writing on the bases of monuments erected all over the South (and even some in the north). You can see it in the Dukes of Hazard and on hats and shirts across the country today. The Confederate flag is seen as the symbol of being a rebel, as well as a symbol of Southern Heritage. Politicians conjure up memories of Southern Heroes even in 2018. To hear people talk about the Confederacy, it is almost as if the South didn’t lose the war at all. Does this sound like a vanquished foe lost to history? Not so much. And Mr. Bonekemper explains how that was so.
As I said, he goes point-by-point through this book debunking this myth, starting with the reasons why the South seceded in the first place, one of the most hotly contested issues to this day. And he doesn’t pull anything he says from thin air: he has sources to back up everything he says. He includes the Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederate States of America, in which he proclaims that the reason for the secession and creation of the Confederate States was to preserve slavery, to each state’s declaration of secession and secession resolutions. He also goes a step further, including demographics and census information from the United States in the years leading up to the Civil War. He also manages to thoroughly debunk the myth of the “Black Confederate”, providing information to why it is not an actual thing.
After addressing the myths around slavery, he goes after the myths around the Southern War Effort. He narrows it down to three things: that Lee was a Military Genius, that the South could never win the war because they were outgunned, and that General Longstreet was responsible for the loss at Gettysburg. Again, Mr. Bonekemper is able to weave counterarguments and back every statement up with facts. While not only proving that General Lee was not, in fact, the greatest general of all time, he was also able to show that the South could have one (and used valid examples of such) and exonerated General Longstreet.
The third portion of the book settled around the Union, and specifically General Grant. He dispelled the myth of that Grant was a drunk and a butcher, as well as the myth that the North won by waging Total War on the South, specifically in the Campaigns of 1864.
For me, this book was an eye opener. It took oft repeated counterclaims to the Lost Cause Myth and backed up those claims with something that defenders of the Myth have a hard time producing: cold, hard facts. It’s also the way he compared Grant to Lee. One of the big takeaways for me from this book was the ability for Grant to learn from his mistakes, while Lee seemed bent on making the same mistakes repeatedly, which ended up costing the Army of Northern Virginia more than they could afford to lose. I also enjoyed how Mr. Bonekemper explored the origins of these myths, not just disproving them but going back to their inception and birth.
This is a book that I would stand from my rooftop and recommend to anyone, especially to those who believe in any aspect of the Lost Cause Myth. Because, let’s face it, there are a lot of people who believe in at least one of the myths from above, whether it be that slavery was not a cause of the war or that Robert E. Lee was the Greatest General of All Time to the South never had a chance or even Grant was an incompetent drunk. I would expect that this book will change the mind of anyone who is on the fence about any of these topics.

What prompted me to start writing this blog a couple of years ago was the events in Charleston, South Carolina. In the wake of the massacre of nine African-American church members by a White Supremacist, the Confederate Battle Flag was removed from the state capitol grounds. This had caused a gigantic controversy, polarizing the public between those who found racist connotations and those who believed that it was “Heritage, not Hate” and an important historical symbol. As I had explored then, the truth is much more convoluted than that. Isn’t that how everything is though?
Today, three years later, and the controversy is still there. Not only is it still there, but it is progressing. Now in North Carolina, on August 21st a crowd formed around the statue of “Silent Sam” on the University of North Carolina’s campus in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At night, with torches lit, and smoke bombs launched by protesters, Silent Sam was torn down. From pictures and video of the event, there appears to be no police interference whatsoever. And watching the videos, it reminds me of a similar August night in 2017, when men in white polos carrying tiki torches marched through the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, in defense of a statue of Robert E. Lee and chanting “You will not replace us”. The next day, protesters clashed in the “Battle of Charlottesville” which left 3 dead (two police officers in a helicopter crash and one civilian run over by a protester) and 19 wounded.
Confederate monuments bob in and out of the public eye and have for years. There’re always controversies surrounding them. Since July 2015, the outcry has been amplified to 11. Silent Sam, one of the more famous monuments, is now the latest victim. There are valid arguments on both sides, as well as the absurd. Defenders of the monuments are not always Southern Revivalists and Apologists; many are concerned for history and feel that if the monuments are taken down, that history will be forgotten. Some of these people are the same as those who opposed the censorship of the Confederate flag in the days following the Charleston Massacre. And another argument of the defenders: when the Confederate monuments are removed, who will be next? And supporting their argument are the examples of other monuments to Founding Fathers and other influential historical figures being removed because of their not-so-pleasant pasts.
One absurd notion that does need to be struck down is that there is a “Cultural Genocide” occurring in the American South. To compare this to genocide anywhere is totally absurd. It is important for us to remember that in Reconstruction, Southern politicians who had been in the Confederate Government could resume their roles in US Government. Even Confederate commanders were elected to public office but just if they swore allegiance to the United States of America. Jim Crow Laws were not enacted by Northern politicians or military commanders, but in fact by former Confederates. The former Confederates made out far better following the Civil War than the defeated of other Civil Wars throughout history and even at that time.
Opponents of the monuments argue that most of these monuments were built during the hey-day of the Civil Rights Movement as a counter-protest, and that some of the monuments are nothing but thinly veiled relics of racism. Again, not that far off. It is absurd to believe that every monument to the Confederacy is about slavery. A prime example: monuments on battlefields. Monuments to Confederate forces on battlefields were usually erected (not always) by survivors of those units. At places such as Gettysburg, each state that participated in the battle could erect a monument or a memorial, something to remember their struggle.
To leave the monuments standing or to take them down is not an easy decision. At least, it’s not as easy as you’d think. I always revert to allowing the people to decide by referendum what to do with the monuments, because ultimately it is their homes. But there are monuments that just seem…out of place. Like the Robert E. Lee Monument in Franklin, Ohio. Yep, Ohio. Ohio was a northern state and sent the third most soldiers to fight the Confederacy (New York and Pennsylvania). 320,000 Ohioans went south to fight, and famous commanders such as Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan all hailed from Ohio. Yet there is a monument to Robert E. Lee there. Why? There are three other monuments to Confederates in Ohio, though two are dedicated at cemeteries where Confederate POWs were buried and a third at the grave of Confederate Bushwhacker William Quantrill. But it’s the monuments to generals like Robert E. Lee in places he never was or by places that he didn’t care for that confuse me.
What trips up everyone about the American Civil War is the fact that it is not totally simple. Not every white southerner who fought in the Civil War fought to preserve slavery. This is something that I can agree on with Confederate Apologists: about a third of all families in the American South owned slaves (1860 US Census). That still leaves 2/3rds of the population without slaves. This is a topic that I have discussed before I believe; citizens joined the Confederate cause for other beliefs, from those of White Supremacy and fear to the defense of their homes. The Silent Sam statue was erected in memoriam of University of North Carolina students who joined the Confederate Army, and for those who did not come home. But it’s not just Silent Sam; there are statues across the South that are dedicated those who went off to war and did not come home. Just as there were statues built to intimidate African-Americans and other minorities during the Civil Rights era, there were statues erected with good intentions.
When looking at the Monument question, there is no one blanket answer. All monuments aren’t good, but they all aren’t bad either. The phrase “erasing history” continues to be bandied about, something used to inspire fear that the world of 1984 is right around the corner. But it is important to remember that there is more to remembering history than just these monuments in town squares. It is the preservation of the battlefields where this war was fought; it is the preservation of historical buildings and artifacts; it is even actually reading books on the subject. At the end of the day, these monuments only tell a small part of a much larger story.

Army Commander: Command of the army boils down to two generals for me, but I do have some honorable mentions:
– George H. Thomas: General Thomas, a native of Virginia, was a Union General who earned the nickname “Rock of Chickamauga” for his brave stand on Snodgrass Hill which allowed General Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland to retreat back into the defenses of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A dependable commander who kept his cool, he would assume command of the Army of the Cumberland following the arrival of General Grant. His army would be responsible for defeating the Army of Tennessee in November 1864 at the gates of Nashville.
– William S. Rosecrans: General Rosecrans was a Washington darling, and for good reason. Methodical, calm and cool under pressure, he was the only undefeated general in the Union Army up into the fall of 1863. The reason why I did not choose him was that after his defeat at Chickamauga he had a complete mental collapse, one which resulted in him being removed from his position.
– George Gordon Meade: As you can see, so far this is a heavily Union list. Meade is an option because he was the last choice for the Army of the Potomac, and technically the most successful general for the Army of the Potomac. He started with victory at the Battle of Gettysburg, which came less than a week after his promotion, and continued forward until Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in April 1865. The only reason why he misses out is because he had a lot of oversight in 1864 from General Grant, and it would have been interesting to see what plans Meade would have come up with on his own for the spring of 1864. As a side note, many alternate histories of the Civil War which include General Meade usually show him as being an incompetent general and his victory at Gettysburg being a fluke. I will have to research into this some more, but I tend to believe that this may not be the case.

The honorable mention list brings me to the only two real contenders for command of my army: either Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee. My selection and opinion are going to be very unpopular with many.
My choice: Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant= Yes, I went with General Grant because he was the better general. Now, before you Robert E. Lee fans grab your pitchforks and torches and chase me into the abandoned windmill, let me explain. General Grant was better at looking at the bigger picture as a whole. Grant was given command in the fall of 1863 of all Northern armies. That’s every single operation. General Lee was never given that much control, though he did get to pull as many reinforcements as he requested (for as long as that was feasible).
The argument about who the better General was usually ends up with a couple of different arguments/excuses. The first one is the Grant had a deeper well of soldiers to draw from, and more supplies as well. Yes, this was true. He did have more than Lee. However, his army for the Overland Campaign of 1864 (the one which led to the Siege of Petersburg and the eventual surrender at Appomattox) was smaller than the force arrayed by General Burnside when he attacked Fredericksburg in December 1862 and General Hooker during the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Lee fans want to say that it was sheer weight of numbers and resources that won. But if that was the case, then Burnside should have burst through Lee at Fredericksburg, or Hooker should have crushed Lee at Chancellorsville. Or go even earlier, and McClellan should have been able to march into Richmond in the early summer of 1862. But they didn’t. Grant was able to take the same strengths that those generals had and actually use them to his advantage. Like a carpenter using his tools to make a beautiful piece of furniture while the others could barely build a basic shoe rack. And not only that, but Grant was able to do this on a much wider scale as well (more on that in a minute).
The next argument is Grant was a butcher. The example pointed to is the Overland Campaign, and specifically the Battle of Cold Harbor. The Battle of Cold Harbor was fought from May 31st to June 12th, 1864. Grant’s Overland Campaign thus far had been tactical losses. He would launch his army against the Confederates, then when he didn’t break through he would go around them. While Lee would win the battles generally (Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, North Anna, Totopotomoy Creek, etc.) he would be forced to race from his defenses and get in front of Grant before Grant entered Richmond. Grant showed a determination to move forward, even if he lost the battle. He knew he needed to threaten Richmond to get Lee where he wanted him. Cold Harbor, however, would be brutal. He would launch fruitless attacks against Lee, whose men were in well protected trenches. The scene would have been a glimpse of the fighting on the western front in World War 1. The assaulting Union soldiers would suffer 3,000 to 7,000 casualties on the morning of June 3rd alone. In his personal memoirs, Grant would say that the attack on Cold Harbor was his worst decision ever.
But if one were to break down the numbers, as a whole, Grant lost less of his forces than Lee. Grant would lose a total of 15% of his entire forces (this number is spread over all of his commands, not just the Army of the Potomac). This number amongst three armies is 154,000 men. Robert E. Lee, on the other hand, would lose 20% of his total command, the most of any Confederate or Union commander. That’s 209,000 men, beginning from when he took over command in 1862. The next closest on the list was John Bell Hood in command of the Army of Tennessee, which would lose 16%. This says a lot, especially when Robert E. Lee had a smaller number of men than Grant.
What is normally overlooked about General Lee is that he did have a smaller command, but he went on the offensive a lot. Now, there’s nothing wrong with going on the offensive…when the situation warrants it. However, Lee had a number of unnecessary assaults, including a fruitless assault on Malvern Hill on July 1st, 1862, which decimated units such as the Mississippi Brigade, and Pickett’s Charge on July 3rd, 1863, to name just a few. But there were more. Grant had the weight of numbers behind him, but he did not lead with the attack every single time. For examples, just look at the Sieges of Vicksburg and Petersburg. Grant tended to care for the well-being of his soldiers, which adds to why the North had less desertions than the South when Grant took command.
One of the biggest myths used to discredit General Grant was that Grant was a drunk. Pre-war Grant had a history of drinking, primarily when he was alone in a fort in California away from his wife. There is no evidence that he was drinking during the war, though he was accused by General Henry Halleck (who was actually jealous of Grant and thought he was an upstart, so he started the rumor following the fall of Forts Donelson and Henry). After the war proponents of the Lost Cause Myth used Grant’s “drinking” to discredit the general who, ultimately, defeated their messiah General Lee. Makes sense too: the myth of General Lee is that he was the greatest general of all time, yet how do you explain him losing? You have to make Grant seem flawed, something lesser than Lee. Maybe he defeated Lee on the battlefield, but Lee will always be the better man kind of thing. Grants image is also not helped by his tenure as President and the controversies that arose around that.
By no means is Lee not a good general. Lee managed to keep the Army of Northern Virginia fighting for over two and a half years, which isn’t a small feat considering the size of his army and the limited resources. He also proved to be adept at dividing his army in the face of the enemy and defeating them, and being able to outrace his enemies for the most part. His name was spoken with fear, which would be a big advantage to having him as a general. And Lee was also the most capable of all the Confederate generals. That’s why the honorable mentions list was so heavily Union. However, Lee did have some flaws besides being overly aggressive.
Lee had a habit of vague orders and loose control over his subordinates. Lee was brilliant at drawing up battle plans and campaigns, however left a lot to the control of his subordinates. While this was sometimes necessary and seems admirable, sometimes the general needs to jump in and take command of the situation. You know, be the general. On July 2nd, 1863, Lee issued only a handful of orders. Those orders were poorly executed, and Lee did not follow up with his subordinates. A prime example of this is he never rode to Ewell’s corner of the battlefield at Culp’s Hill and ordered him to attack Culp’s Hill while Longstreet attacked on the Union left. Meanwhile, Grant was not afraid to step in and assist his subordinates when it was needed. This can be seen at both the relief of the Siege of Chattanooga and Grant’s Overland Campaign. A commander needs to be a commander.
Grant also learned from his mistakes and moved on, whereas Lee continued to make the same mistakes. Grant evolved as a commander, and that made him more effective. Lee thought that his recipe for victory at Chancellorsville (which even he admitted was costly) would work just as well at Gettysburg a little over a month later. But not just that, but massive frontal assaults against entrenched enemies. Sometimes it feels as though Lee’s answer to everything is a massive assault.
I want Grant to be in command of my army because he is a big picture general. He is able to look at all the angles of the situation, and bring the appropriate forces to bear. While it is a tough call because Lee was talented and able to “wield his army like a rapier”, Grant is more of a practical mind.

This is probably the shortest draft of them all, but these were fun to choose nonetheless. These are the coveted command of the Cavalry and Chief of Artillery. To be honest, these were the hardest decisions I had to make during this entire draft. And for good reason: there were good choices.
Cavalry Commander: Maj. Gen. John Buford= Between the two categories, this was the hardest to choose. The choice came down to three cavalry commanders: John Buford, JEB Stuart, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. I settled on Buford, in the end, because Buford foresaw what cavalry was becoming. Stuart did some impressive things with cavalry, true, and Forrest was self-taught and impressive, but Buford took a demoralized cavalry that had been throttled time and again by superior horsemanship and turned it into a formidable force. By June 1863 he was able to go toe-to-toe with JEB Stuart and his cavaliers, but that was because he changed the game.
Buford was a military man all of his life, and spent most of his career fighting against the Native Americans on the frontier before the war. Buford was different from his counterparts in both the South and the North, who still followed the idea that cavalry should be used for grand saber charges across open fields. Buford saw that a new type of war was coming, one where cavalry would need to be flexible and operate more as Mounted Infantry. His troopers went into battle with Sharpe’s’ Carbines, a breach loading weapon that tripled the fire power of the average trooper. Buford would use these weapons to their effectiveness on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. His two brigades of cavalry would hold off the Confederates under A.P. Hill and Richard Ewell long enough for Union Infantry to arrive and secure the high ground around Gettysburg, specifically Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge. That increased fire power devastated the Confederate infantry, and kept the troopers in the fight longer than traditional muzzle loading carbines.
General Buford would die in Washington, D.C. on December 16, 1863, from Typhoid Fever. But the legacy he left, especially his performance at Gettysburg, was quite impressive. He was a cavalry commander who saw the waves of change coming, and decided to embrace it. He saw how the Sioux fought, and he especially took to heart the writings of a man named General John Watts de Peyster, who was something of a Military Scientist and argued that loose formations known as Skirmish Lines would be far better than the shoulder-to-shoulder line of battle tactic used by large armies at the time. This is huge, because these are tactics that not only would have worked better with the advanced weaponry used during the Civil War, but were the basis for Small Unit Tactics that are still used today. I want a cavalry commander who is not going to slaughter thousands of troopers uselessly in saber and lance charges, but instead will employ state of the art tactics to maximize their effectiveness to its full potential.

Chief of Artillery: Maj. Gen. Henry J. Hunt= I first learned about Henry J. Hunt after reading the alternate history trilogy Gettysburg by Newt Gingrich and William Fortschen. He played a prominent role in the story, and the nice thing about the trilogy is that it is all based in actual history (at a later point I can address the trilogy. But the authors use actual history to create the alternate history they write about). Following reading the books, I naturally began to look into General Hunt. Hunt was quite the commander.
My guess is most people, when going through drafting artillery commanders, would choose the young Confederate artillery wizard Edward Porter Alexander. But E.P. Alexander’s abilities, though impressive, don’t compare as well to Hunt’s. I have two examples of this.
Exhibit A: Malvern Hill. The Battle of Malvern Hill was fought on July 1st, 1862, southeast of the city of Richmond, Virginia. It was the last battle in what would be called the Seven Day’s Battles or the Peninsula Campaign. The Union Army under the command of Gen. George B. McClellan was pulling out from their battlements around the city. Robert E. Lee continued to harass the Union Army, pushing them back in one bloody battle after the next. The position the Union Army found themselves was below Malvern Hill, waiting to board US Navy transports and be ferried down river toward a different staging area.
A major position that needed to be defended was Malvern Hill. If the Confederates secured the hill, they could cut the Union Army in half and destroy it, as well as destroy the unprotected supplies on the James River. Henry Hunt arrived and took command. He positioned his artillery pieces on Malvern Hill, overlooking the wide-open slopes below and daring the Confederates to attack him. Robert E. Lee, the gambler, obliged him.
Now, Lee could only attack right up the hill. The flanks of Malvern Hill were protected by thick swamps and woods, obstacles that would break his army up and prevent them from advancing forward. Hunt placed thirty-three artillery batteries on Malvern Hill: a total of 171 guns. The Confederates launched themselves against Hunt’s guns, and it became Henry Hunt’s greatest day. Lee sent his men up the hill time and time again; and, time and time again, Hunt’s guns and supporting infantry turned them back. The Confederates never reached the top of Malvern Hill, and suffered 5,650 casualties. This was in no small part due to Hunt. Hunt positioned the artillery, and picked the ground. He would also demonstrate here how effective concentrated artillery fire could work, and it showed the usefulness of Reserve Artillery, artillery that was not attached to a corps. During the Civil War, artillery batteries were assigned to brigades and corps. The bone of contention throughout the war was who had overall control of the artillery. Corps commanders could position their artillery however they wanted, and didn’t have to coordinate with anyone else unless ordered to by the commanding general. Henry Hunt wanted all of the artillery placed under his command, so he could place the artillery pieces in the most devastating positions as possible. This would lead to rifts between him and other officers, the removal of the Artillery Reserve and then it’s reinstatement before Gettysburg. Robert E. Lee would never forget the loss at Malvern Hill, but he would fail to learn from it as well.
Exhibit B: Gettysburg. A year after Malvern Hill, Henry Hunt would be facing the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia again. This time, he would be placing artillery atop Cemetery Hill. On July 1st, 1863, Hunt arrived at Gettysburg and helped Winfield Scott Hancock place artillery atop Cemetery Hill. That night, the Confederates would fail to push the Union Army from the hill top. Hunt was back in the saddle as the commander of the Artillery Reserve, reinstated by General George Gordon Meade. On July 1st and July 2nd, Hunt would play a critical role in helping place artillery pieces along the Union line, stretching from Culp’s Hill in the north to Little Round Top in the south.
On July 3rd, Hunt’s artillery would play an important role in the defense against Pickett’s Charge. Hunt would advocate for slow, accurate artillery fire. He also got into a verbal altercation with General Hancock over the use of artillery (this is another example of Corps Artillery vs. Artillery Reserve). Hunt conserved enough ammunition to devastate Pickett’s Charge.
Following the battle, Hunt’s next greatest achievement was the command of the artillery during the Siege of Petersburg. Hunt was methodical and devoted his career to the study of artillery and perfecting its uses. I want an artillery commander who knows how to harness its immense power and use it to be devastating.